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Tuesday, November 19, 2024
Boston Stock Brokers: Clement, Parker & Company
Sunday, November 17, 2024
Boston Stock Brokers: George S. Baldwin & Company
Saturday, November 16, 2024
Thursday, November 14, 2024
Boston Stock Brokers: NYSE Brokers Listed as Primarily Boston-based in the NYSE 1898-1902 Database
Quite a large number of brokers trading on the NYSE also kept offices or traded in Boston. In the case of the brokers listed below, Boston was their main base, while one of the firm's partners maintained a seat on the New York Exchange. So this list is not complete with regard to firms that did business in both places, as firms like Brown Brothers and Blake Brothers, mentioned in recent posts, did not identify themselves as primarily Boston firms, and I did not classify them that way in the NYSE broker database.
Whatever the case, this is another starting point for looking for Boston broker cancels, as David T and I have been methodically collecting the NYSE cancels for years.
Elisha D. | Bangs & Company | Boston |
William | Bassett | Boston |
John W. | Belches & Company | Boston |
George C. | Brooks & Company | Boston |
George F. | Brown Jr. | Boston |
Brown, Reilly & Company | Boston | |
Chase & Barstow | Boston | |
Curtis & Motley | Boston | |
Curtis & Sanger | Boston | |
Dillaway & Company | Boston | |
Dillaway & Starr | Boston | |
Downer & Company | Boston | |
Walter H. | Edgerly | Boston |
Edgerly & Crocker | Boston | |
Emery & Tucker | Boston | |
Estabrook & Company | Boston | |
Hale & Company | Boston | |
Hayden, Stone & Company | Boston | |
E. C. | Hodges & Company | Boston |
Jackson & Curtis | Boston | |
Kidder, Peabody & Company | Boston | |
Lee, Higginson & Company | Boston | |
E. E. | Leland & Company | Boston |
S. D. | Loring & Son | Boston |
F. S. | Mead & Company | Boston |
E. Rollins | Morse & Brother | Boston |
Norman & Company | Boston | |
Paine, Webber & Company | Boston | |
Pearmain & Brooks | Boston | |
John | Pickering & Moseley | Boston |
F. H. | Prince & Company | Boston |
Richardson, Hill & Company | Boston | |
Schofield, Whicher & Company | Boston | |
Sutton & Bowen | Boston | |
Tower, Giddings & Company | Boston | |
Towle & Fitzgerald | Boston | |
Tucker, Anthony & Company | Boston | |
H. C. | Wainwright & Company | Boston |
Andrew N. | Winslow | Boston |
Tuesday, November 12, 2024
Boston Stock Brokers: Working Towards a Complete List
As with the NYSE, Moody's published the membership lists for the Boston Exchange for 1900, 1901 and 1902. But it means that we're missing 1898 and 1899, which are gaps that need an answer. Turns out that at least one book available online provides some help, thought it is not ideal. An 1893 hagiography of the exchange and its members provides a complete list, and a quick scan of my stamps shows at least one broker that shows up in this 1893 list that was no longer in the exchange by 1900.
Sunday, November 10, 2024
New York Stock Brokers: "BB & CO": Brown Brothers & Co., Brown, Bruns & Co., or Blake Brothers & Co.?
Identical corporate initials can confound the identification of firms that used 1898 revenue stamps, as the cases of H&H and AS&Co have demonstrated. In the case today, we consider B.B & Co on the 1898 dollar values, likely used to pay taxes on stock trades. At least three firms with these initials traded stocks on the NYSE during the 1898 tax period, and it is certain that all three of them used their initials to cancel documentary stamps. The best known of the two was Brown Brothers & Company, a multinational firm with offices trading on the exchanges in Boston, Philadelphia, New York, and Baltimore. Blake Brothers & Company also had members with seats in New York and Boston, while Brown, Bruns & Company, appears to have traded only on the NYSE. Brown Brothers would, through a merger, become Brown Brothers Harriman, one of the best known Wall Street firms of the 20th century.
A stock sale memo from Brown, Bruns & Company: 300 shares of a +$13 stock were sold, requiring $6 worth of documentary revenue stamps. 6 copies of Scott R182 were used, each with the same cancel: B. B. & CO. Below is a single stamp from that memo:
Brown Bruns ceased to exist and stopped trading by later 1990 or early 1901, making it less likely that the cancels on the four stamps above came from that firm. My guess would be that one of the cancel types above belong to Brown Brothers, and the other to Blake Brothers. Someday sale memoranda might show up that provide confirmation.
The 1905 year on the second stamp was clearly caused by an incorrect adjustment of the year date slug.
Saturday, November 9, 2024
New York Stock Brokers: Wayland Trask & Company or Walsh, Tailer & Company?
- Walsh, Tailer & Company
- Wayland Trask & Company
Thursday, November 7, 2024
New York Stock Brokers: Allen, Sand & Company vs Alling, Secor & Company
As with the recently discussed firms Halsted & Hodges and Halsted & Hollister, the New York Stock Exchange firms Allen, Sand & Company and Alling, Secor & Company may create some confusion in cancel identification. I've been reviewing my collection to check on accuracy and potential stories for this website, and early in the process I found a cancel where it should not be.
Immediately below is an inset scan of an album page with two "AS&Co" cancels, under the title Allen, Sand & Company. I clearly mounted the green R173 first, assuming the AS&Co to stand for Allen, Sand. Subsequently, the R184 with the fully written out "Allen Sand & Co" was added. But as I paged forward and came to the firm Alling, Secor, I notice that the "A.S.&Co." cancels on the stamps on the Alling, Secor memorandum of sale were familiar, and realized they matched the cancel on the R173 on the Allen, Sand page. So I've subsequently moved the stamp to the Alling, Secor page.
Here is what the page once looked like, with the stamp on the left misidentified:
Tuesday, November 5, 2024
New York Stock Brokers: Sorting Out Clarence M. Cohen; Cohen, Stiebel & Company and Cohen, Greene & Company
Sunday, November 3, 2024
New York Stock Brokers: Halsted & Hodges vs Halsted & Hollister
Saturday, November 2, 2024
New York Stock Brokers: The Bouvier Brothers
The Bouvier brothers, Michel Charles and John Vernou, were both brokers at the New York Stock Exchange during the 1898 tax period, and they both acquired their seats in 1869, making them some of the most senior members of the exchange by 1898.
The cancels of Michel C. Bouvier come as straight line M. C. BOUVIER & CO, or as initials of the same. They seem to be the most commonly found. The only John Vernou Bouvier cancel I know of is shown on a sale memo below.
Memos courtesy of MSgt. David Thompson.
There were three John V. Bouviers; the one trading during the 1898 tax period was John V. Bouvier I. John V. Bouvier III, aka "Black Jack", was the father of Jackie Kennedy.
Thursday, October 31, 2024
A Collector's Guide to 1898 Documentary Printed Precancels: The End for Now and Happy Halloween
For nearly two months I've covered the subject of these precancels; this will be the last post for the time being. The next step with this material is to consolidate it into supporting material for a new and updated list. For now, back to more conventional subjects, like brokers, banks, and insurance companies.
Maintenance and revisions are underway for the tabs (what Google calls "pages") at the top of the website, including addition of the original posts where there were once only links. The Insurance Agents and Insurance Company tabs/pages are good examples. Going forward I'll use pages dedicated to cancel series.
For now, and for Halloween, I'll reprise items from a previous post that focused on death:
Tuesday, October 29, 2024
A Collector's Guide to 1898 Documentary Printed Precancels: A Literature Review
Philatelic Literature Review
Though Richard Fullerton published in 1952 what has been the definitive list of 1898 documentary printed cancels, there have been other distinguished philatelists that have contributed to the field, and whose work predated and ran concurrently to the work of Fullerton. Clarence Chappell, who produced an extensive list of the printed cancels on 1898 proprietaries, published a list of their documentary counterparts in the Weekly Philatelic Gossip in 1942. And a contemporary of Mr. Fullerton, Charles Metz, published lists of these cancels in Chambers Stamp Journal in the late 1940s and early 50s.
Railroad Companies. This article appears to be the first published list in philatelic literature of the 1898 documentary printed cancels. Chappell confines the list to railroads only. He includes all of the railroads in Fullerton’s 1952 list except for the Chicago, Burlington & Northern RR, the Chicago, Fort Madison & Des Moines RR, the Kansas City & Northwestern RR, and the Sioux City & Pacific RY. His format is identical to his better known 1898 proprietary printed cancel list. As of 1942 it is clear that much discovery was still ahead for these cancels, as Chappell is not only missing four of the railroads in Fullerton’s list, but many of the 2 cent stamps and cancel varieties.
The Bureau Specialist, November 1946: This is a stub of an article in which Gilmore E. Martin, Bureau Isssues Association Member #231, reports having the 10 cent documentary battleship precanceled C.M.&St.P.Ry by the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway. The same Mr. Gilmore reports knowing of a collector in St. Charles, Missouri who has the same 10 cent stamp precanceled I.&G.N.R.R. by the International and Great Northern Railroad and used on an export bill of lading. Neither of these stamps were accounted for in Chappell’s 1942 list.
Fullerton List (with addendum). In 1972, Eric Jackson reprinted the list, including a one page addendum that Fullerton added soon after the original list was printed.
Fullerton Article in Linn’s, 1952. Railroads on Battleships. This article in Linn’s Stamp News appeared in a special “Precancel Edition”. Richard Fullerton was a member of the Precancel Stamp Society, and showed his collecting interests in this article. While his list was published devoid of subjective commentary, the Linn’s article is a cheerleading piece, written to cultivate interest in collecting 1898 documentary precancels, specifically those made by railroads.
Charles Metz, Chambers Stamp Journal, 1948 and 1952. It appears that Charles Metz was engaged in collecting and documenting the users, types and varieties of 1898 documentary printed cancels around the same time as Richard Fullerton, publishing his work in the Chambers Stamp Journal and then having articles republished in the The American Revenuer. It appears that Metz’s first effort came in 1948, titled simply, Check List of Railroad Revenue Precancels. This list omits the Chicago, Burlington & Northern RR and the Kansas City & North Western RR that are included in the Fullerton List. By 1951, Metz published a follow-up list in Chambers Stamp Journal, continuing to omit the two previously mentioned railroads but including the I&GNRR 10 cent which was not included in his 1948 list, nor in Fullerton’s list. Notably, Metz quotes the collector D. S. Tierney, regarding the existence of the Chicago, Fort Madison & Des Moines RR cancel. Tierney reported in 1951 having this cancel on a Chicago, Burlington & Quincy RR bill of Lading. Tierney added that the CFM&DMRR was a short line that ran from Fort Madison, Iowa, northwest to a junction with the CB&QRR near Batavia, which was 12 miles from where Tierney lived. The CFM&DMRR is one of the rarest of all the railroad printed cancels; it may be that the known copy was removed from Mr. Tierney’s bill of lading.
Richard Friedberg, Linn’s, Printed Cancels on Documentaries are Scarce, 1985. In this short article in Linn’s Stamp News, Friedberg provides a “scarcity rating” to the most common variety of cancel used by each railroad in the Fullerton list. Using a scale from 1 to 5, more commonly seen cancels like those of the CB&QRR and I&GNRR are given a 1, while the scarcest like the Chicago, Fort Madison & Des Moines Railroad are assigned a 5. Varieties and the rarer items among the railroads, like cancels on the 2 cent documentary, are not included in his index. Those ratings are included in the appendix of this volume. At the end of the column, the existence of the T.S.E.RY. cancel is mentioned, though the railroad is not among those included in the scarcity index. Richard Friedberg had a long running column in Linn’s Stamp News in which 85 of his columns were collected into the book Introduction to United States Revenue Stamps. The column dedicated to 1898 documentary printed cancels did not make the book.
Ron Lesher, Stamp Collector & Dealer, 2021. Lesher’s article is dedicated to the International & Great Northern Railroad’s printed cancels. The I&GNRR used more denominations on which to pre-print cancels than any other railroad; Lesher provides examples of all those denominations, including the 1, 2, 5, and 10 cent battleship stamps, the 1c green R154, and adds the I&GNRR’s battleship 1 cent precancel handstamp, which Fullerton included in his list. Both the CM&StPRy and the I&GNRR used the 10 cent documentary for foreign bills of lading. The CM&StPRy undoubtedly had cargo that was exported to Canada, while the I&GNRR, Lesher notes, met the National Railway of Mexico at the Texas border city of Laredo.
Sunday, October 27, 2024
Saturday, October 26, 2024
A Collector's Guide to 1898 Documentary Printed Precancels: Kahului Railroad Follow-up
The day after posting the Kahului Railroad printed precanceled stamp, a seller on Ebay from Golubie, Poland, listed two stamps that appear to be examples of Kahului Railroad handstamp cancels:
Thursday, October 24, 2024
A Collector's Guide to 1898 Documentary Printed Precancels: The Kahului Railroad?
From Frank Sente's collection is this example of a possible railroad printed precancel. This stamp and cancel was not included in Richard Fullerton's 1952 list, or in the lists of Clarence Chappell or Charles Metz; my guess is that it was either 1) unknown at the time by any of these gentleman, 2) adjudged to be of questionable legitimacy, or 3) not yet in existence by the middle of the 20th century.